Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Pennsylvania Marcellus News Roundup, June 21-28

Massive stores of natural gas that lie underneath big portions of the United States offer a cleaner source of electricity to a country that relies heavily on coal, but producing all that gas also can pump lots of pollution into the air.

Executives with Patriot Water Treatment LLC and members of the region's legislative delegation to Columbus appear optimistic that issues between the state's Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Natural Resources could be resolved so that the company can continue to operate and expand.

The state Department of Labor and Industry said in a report this month there were 72,000 "new hires" in the Marcellus Shale drilling industry and in related industries between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2011.
But not all of them are new jobs, a distinction that led to a political argument in Harrisburg this week.

Environmental Protection Agency investigators will fan out to oil and gas shales across the country this summer to start the field work for the agency's study of the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water, EPA said Thursday. Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale will get the closet look with three counties -- Washington, in southwestern Pennsylvania and Susquehanna and Bradford, in the northeast corner of the state.

Impact fees for Marcellus Shale drillers: Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, R-Jefferson County, is pushing this issue on behalf of the folks at home, and Corbett is pushing right back. Corbett has made clear he wants to hear the findings of his Marcellus Shale Commission, due in late July, before any state policy is set on the natural gas boom, much less taxes or impact fees.

A new coalition of outdoors groups is emerging as a potent force in the debate over natural gas drilling. The Sportsmen Alliance for Marcellus Conservation isn't against the process of fracking for gas, but its members want to make sure the rush to cash in on the valuable resource doesn't damage streams, forests, and the various creatures that call those places home.

Range Resources Corp. (RRC) Chief Executive John H. Pinkerton will step down and be succeeded by the natural-gas company's president and chief operating officer, Jeffrey L. Ventura, part of a company shift in focus to the Marcellus shale region in Pennsylvania.

House Republicans on Tuesday abruptly canceled a vote on an impact fee to produce revenue from Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale natural gas extraction, only hours after they had announced it would be debated.

Independent energy producer Chief Oil & Gas has been fined $180,000 by Pennsylvania regulators for environmental violations in the Marcellus Shale, the Department of Environmental Protection said on Tuesday.